Nintendo Wanted Bond To Be Friends With His Enemies In GoldenEye

October 26, 2015

Jon

The gaming experts over at Nintendo Life remember N64’s GoldenEye 007 as “the best Bond video game of all time,” but legendary developer Shigeru Miyamoto almost prevented this outcome. Speaking at GameCity in Nottingham, England, game designer Martin Hollis revealed Miyamoto was reluctant to embrace this violent shooter game, as he felt it threatened Nintendo’s reputation as a giant of family-friendly entertainment.

According to Hollis, Miyamoto got cold feet during the process of developing GoldenEye 007, issuing some very unusual directives. “One point was that there was too much close-up killing—he found it a bit too horrible,” said Hollis. “I don’t think I did anything with that input. The second point was, he felt the game was too tragic, with all the killing. He suggested that it might be nice if, at the end of the game, you got to shake hands with all your enemies in the hospital.”

Fortunately, Hollis managed to steer the game clear of this finale, but he did include a sequence that suggested the characters were really actors, downplaying the game’s violent consequences. As a result of Miyamoto’s feedback, Hollis was also forced to drop some very promising gore. “When I saw it the first time, I thought it was awesome,” he said. “It was a fountain of blood, like that moment in The Shining when the lift doors open. Then I thought, ‘Hmm, this might be a bit too much red.’”